Roracc  6rccky 


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Hddrcss 

On  the  Centenary  Observance 
of  Rorace  Greeley 
at 
Hmberst,  j^ew  fjampsbire 

february  3^  1911 

By  Hlbert  6.  piUsbury 


114 


f- 


ADDRESS  OX  THE  CENTENARY  OBSERVANCE  OF  HORACE  GREELEY 
AT  AMHERST,  NEW  HAMPSHIRE,   FEBRUARY  3,  1911 
BY  ALBERT  E,   PILLSBURY 

THE  journalists  are  now  the  true  kings  and  clergy.  Hence- 
forth historians,  unless  they  are  fools,  must  write  not  of 
Bourbon  dynasties,  and  Tudors,  and  Hapsburgs,  but  of 
Broad-sheet  dynasties,  and  quite  new  successive  names,  according 
as  this  or  the  other  able  editor,  or  combination  of  able  editors, 
gains  the  world's  ear," 

Thus  spake  Thomas  Carlyle  in  1831.  In  the  same 
year,  perhaps  at  the  same  moment,  there  found  his  way 
into  the  city  of  New  York  a  raw  country  lad  from  New 
Hampshire,  who  had  it  in  charge  of  fate  to  make  the  Amer- 
ican kings  and  clergy  bend  before  the  first  "broad-sheet 
dynasty"  known  to  the  new  world.  The  people  of  his 
native  town  and  blood,  the  tillers  of  the  soil  that  produced 
him,  are  gathered  here  in  his  memory.  The  eager  interest 
which  the  world  takes  in  every  point  and  circumstance  of 
the  life  of  a  noted  personage  extends  to  the  place  of  his 
birth,  and  this  accident  has  made  many  a  place  otherwise 
insignificant  a  place  of  pilgrimage.  Today  this  modest 
New  Hampshire  town  claims  and  holds  a  wide  attention  as 
the  spot  where  a  famous  and  historic  character  first  saw  the 
light  of  day  one  hundred  years  ago. 

The  story  of  Horace  Greeley  is  the  familiar  fireside  tale 
of  a  boy  who  worked  his  way  from  sordid  poverty  to  honor- 
able fame  and  a  place  in  history,  by  the  power  within  him. 

s 


Greeley  is  unique  even  among  what  are  called  self-made 
men.  He  made  the  ascent  in  spite  of  personal  faults  and 
weaknesses  that  would  have  stopped  the  way  and  ruined 
the  prospects  of  any  but  a  man  of  compelling  genius.  The 
people  always  made  merry  of  his  foibles,  but  he  secured  and 
held  for  a  generation  a  commanding  influence  over  public 
opinion  and  the  councils  of  the  nation.  The  man  who  did 
this  calls  for  attention. 

We  must  take  a  look  at  the  Amherst  boy,  the  ten  years 
of  Horace  that  belong  to  this  town.  It  will  interest  this 
audience  to  observe  that  Amherst  may  take  credit  for  devel- 
oping, even  in  ten  years,  most  of  the  traits  that  afterward 
made  him  famous.  When  he  had  become  a  celebrity  the 
usual  crop  of  boyhood  tales  began  to  appear,  many  of  them 
absurdly  exaggerated,  as  he  declared,  but  there  are  some 
that  rest  on  his  own  authority.  There  is  no  doubt  that  as 
a  boy  he  was  a  prodigy.  A  frail,  odd,  tow-headed  child, 
nervous  and  sensitive,  timid  of  manner  and  squeaky  of 
voice,  he  seemed  to  have  eyes  more  for  print  than  for  any- 
thing else.  He  learned  to  read,  nobody  ever  knew  how, 
before  he  could  speak  plainly,  and  never  left  off  reading. 
It  is  said  that  he  could  read  any  book  or  paper  upside 
down,  and  there  are  indications  that  after  he  grew  to  man's 
estate  he  may  have  read  some  things  by  this  process  of  in- 
version. If  reading  came  to  Horace  by  nature,  as  Dogberry 
said,  writing  came  not  at  all.  The  crow's  tracks  that  fol- 
lowed his  pen  were  all  his  life  a  national  laughter.  A  tj'pe- 
setter  in  the  Tribune  oflfice  once  said  that  if  Belshazzar  had 

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seen  that  hand-writing  on  the  wall  it  would  have  killed  him 
on  the  spot,  Horace  had  to  educate  himself,  and  he  did  it, 
on  the  whole,  so  much  better  than  schools  or  colleges  did  it 
then,  or  do  it  now,  as  to  inspire  him  with  a  lifelong  con- 
tempt for  colleges  and  college  graduates — the  most  ignorant 
of  all  horned  cattle,  as  he  called  them.  He  used  to  walk 
down  the  road  to  meet  the  weekly  Farmer's  Cabinet,  and 
absorb  the  whole  contents  of  the  paper  on  the  way  home. 
He  scoured  the  neighborhood  for  books,  and  read  by  the 
light  of  the  fire,  as  Abraham  Lincoln  did,  everything  in 
print  that  he  could  lay  hands  on. 

Unlike  Lincoln,  he  did  not  mingle  much  in  the  sports  and 
games  of  the  other  boys.  He  sometimes  went  fishing,  but 
he  never  would  use  a  gun,  and  it  is  said  that  he  stopped  his 
ears  at  the  sound  of  a  gun.  He  seems  to  have  had  a  woman's 
horror  of  bloodshed  and  slaughter,  that  followed  him 
through  life  and  probably  affected  his  public  conduct  on  one 
or  two  notable  occasions.  He  was  easily  first  at  school,  and 
cried  if  by  any  mischance  he  lost  the  place  at  the  head  of  the 
class.  A  biographer  says  that  he  had  read  the  Bible 
through,  and  beaten  the  town  in  spelling-school,  in  his  fifth 
year.  His  reputation  extended  beyond  the  town  limits. 
The  Bedford  school  committee  voted  that  no  pupil  from 
any  neighboring  town  should  be  admitted  to  their  schools 
"except  Horace  Greeley."  He  was  a  good-natured  boy,  a 
favorite  in  school  and  among  the  neighbors.  He  tried  to 
smoke  at  five  years  of  age,  and  never  tried  again,  never 
touched  liquor  after  his  thirteenth  year,  though  liquor  was 

5 


then  so  common  that  he  describes  in  his  "Recollections" 
the  tables  set  with  rum  and  brandy  in  front  of  hospitable 
doors  at  the  ordination  of  President  Lord  in  this  village,  and 
if  swearing  is,  as  somebody  has  called  it,  only  the  unneces- 
sary use  of  profane  language,  Horace  Greeley,  boy  and 
man,  can  probably  be  acquitted  of  all  personal  vices. 

They  picture  Horace  as  wearing  in  summer  the  remnant 
of  a  palm-leaf  hat,  a  tow  shirt  never  buttoned  at  the  neck, 
and  tow  trousers  with  legs  of  diverse  lengths,  and  in  winter 
the  same  with  jacket  and  shoes.  Like  all  farmer's  boys  of 
those  days,  he  had  to  take  his  share  of  work  and  some 
rough  work.  He  rode  the  horse  to  plow,  and  was  thrown 
off,  helped  his  father  for  a  while  in  a  saw-mill,  picked 
stones  a  good  deal,  which  he  did  not  like,  and  picked  hops 
in  the  season,  which  was  more  like  play,  for  it  brought  the 
young  people  together  in  a  sort  of  neighborhood  frolic 
as  some  of  the  oldest  here  may  remember. 

In  the  winter  of  1821,  before  Horace  was  ten  years  old,  he 
had  to  take  leave  of  this  place  of  his  birth.  Debt  and  mis- 
fortune drove  the  Greeley  family  from  Amherst  to  Vermont 
and  thence  to  a  Pennsylvania  wilderness.  Horace's  young 
ambition  had  already  devoted  him  to  the  "  art  preservative 
of  all  arts,"  and  he  was  resolved  to  be  a  printer.  After 
many  rebuffs,  in  the  spring  of  1826  the  tall,  pale,  awkward 
boy,  as  he  described  himself,  was  found  at  the  case  in  the 
printing  office  of  the  Northern  Spectator,  at  East  Poultney, 
Vermont.  In  his  nineteenth  year  he  had  mastered  the 
trade,  was  first  in  the  village  debating  society,  and  the  local 

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cyclopedia  of  everything  political.  But  the  Spectator  failed, 
and  he  lost  his  place.  He  had  no  money,  no  prospects,  no 
influential  friends,  and  after  looking  here  and  there  for 
work  and  finding  none,  the  forlorn  and  friendless  lad  start- 
ed afoot,  with  stick  and  bundle,  on  the  journey  that  ended 
after  many  stormy  years  at  the  threshold  of  the  White 
House  which  he  was  not  to  enter.  He  drifted  about,  seek- 
ing and  finding  here  or  there  a  job  at  the  case,  and  finally, 
on  the  seventeenth  day  of  August,  1831,  the  young  tramp- 
printer  brought  up  in  New  York  city,  his  bundle  on  his 
back  and  ten  dollars  in  his  pocket,  dreaming,  perhaps,  but 
knowing  as  little  as  the  world  knew  of  what  was  before  him. 

We  must  pass  by  the  struggles  and  ventures  of  his  early 
years  in  the  city,  the  Morning  Post,  his  first  bantling  of 
three  weeks,  the  New  Yorker,  successful  everywhere  but  in 
the  till,  the  Jeffersonian,  the  Log  Cabin,  of  the  famous 
Tippecanoe  campaign  of  1840.  They  made  reputation  for 
him,  the  Log  Cabin  a  national  reputation,  but  no  money. 
The  next  trial  proved  to  be  the  master-stroke.  On  the  tenth 
day  of  April,  1841,  Horace  Greeley  issued  the  first  number 
of  the  New  York  Tribune,.  From  this  time  he  was  making 
history.  The  Tribune  was  to  become  an  American  insti- 
tution, and  to  wield  a  more  direct  and  powerful  influence 
upon  the  recasting  of  the  American  nation  than  any  other 
product  of  the  newspaper  press. 

We  cannot  speak  of  Greeley  without  speaking  of  the  Tri- 
bune. They  were  one  and  inseparable.  The  paper  began 
as  a  Whig  journal,  devoted  to  Clay  and  a  tariff  for  pro- 

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tection,  and  with  the  strong  leaning  which  Greeley  always 
had  toward  all  social  and  political  reforms — too  strong  a 
leaning,  perhaps,  though  while  his  mind  was  open  to  all  the 
"isms "he  really  embraced  few  or  none  of  them.  He  was 
anti-slavery,  though  not  an  avowed  abolitionist,  from  the  day 
when  he  witnessed  the  rescue  of  a  fugitive  slave  in  Ver- 
mont. The  infamies  of  the  annexation  of  Texas,  the  Mex- 
ican war,  and  the  fugitive-slave  law  of  1850,  stirred 
Greeley's  soul  to  its  depths  and  put  him  into  the  fore- 
front of  the  political  Free  Soil  and  anti-slavery  movement. 
Thenceforth  the  slave-power  had  no  bolder  or  more  resolute 
antagonist,  nor  any  whose  blow  was  more  direct  or  deadly. 
He  openly  encouraged  resistance  to  the  fugitive-slave  law, 
heaped  contempt  upon  the  Dred  Scott  deliverance  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  which  he  justly  declared  to  be  "  of  no  more 
authority  than  the  opinion  of  the  loafers  in  a  Washington 
bar-room,"  rallied  the  country  to  the  defence  of  bleeding 
Kansas,  and  led  the  way  in  bringing  all  the  anti-slavery 
forces  together  in  the  Republican  party.  The  historic 
character  and  influence  of  the  Tribune  grew  out  of  the 
slavery  question  more  than  any  other.  It  began  to  be  a 
public  force  at  the  time  when  slavery  was  pushing  all  other 
questions  aside,  and  its  power  grew  as  the  heat  of  the  con- 
flict waxed  fiercer.  The  slave  oligarchy  felt  Greeley's  steel 
in  their  vitals,  and  it  was  not  long  before  they  paid  the 
Tribune  the  high  compliment,  which  it  shared  with  Garri- 
son's Liberator,  of  an  attempt  to  exclude  it  from  the  mails 
in  the  slave  states. 

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From  the  late  forties  the  Tribune  was  the  leading  news- 
paper of  the  country.  In  a  letter  written  thirty-nine  years 
ago  today,  February  third,  1872,  Greeley  said  that  in 
ordinary  times  the  circulation  of  the  daily  had  been  40,000 
and  of  the  weekly  120,000  copies.  Figures  never  measured 
the  influence  of  the  Tribune,  which  extended  far  beyond  its 
own  readers.  In  Greeley's  time  a  leading  newspaper  was 
a  social  and  political  power,  addressed  to  thinking  people 
and  read  for  its  opinions  not  less  than  for  the  news.  It 
usually  represented  a  real  character,  and  often  a  great 
character.  It  had  a  constituency,  built  up  by  the  public 
confidence  in  the  man  behind  it.  Of  all  these  Greeley  was 
first  in  the  eye  of  the  people,  and  the  Tribune  spoke  with 
his  voice.  Founded  in  protest  against  the  rowdy  journalism 
of  the  Jefferson  Brick  type,  so  justly  stigmatized  by  Charles 
Dickens,  it  was  clean,  independent,  honest  and  fearless. 
Greeley  talked  to  the  people  in  their  own  tongue  and,  as  it 
were,  face  to  face.  A  habit  of  signing  his  articles  with  his 
name  or  initials  gave  them  a  direct  personal  element,  and 
many  an  honest  countryman  who  never  saw  Horace 
Greeley  felt  that  he  had  talked  with  him  and  knew  him. 
On  occasions  he  could  smite  with  a  rough  and  heavy  hand, 
whose  blow  was  terrible  and  sometimes  fatal.  Greeley  was 
neither  nice  nor  polite  in  his  choice  of  words.  Naturally 
the  most  peaceable  and  kindly  of  men,  he  was  hot  of  temper 
and  a  master  of  vituperation.  The  much-quoted  "  You  lie, 
you  villain,"  was  not  an  every-day  affair,  but  he  answered 
the  fool  according  to  his  folly,  and  never  stuck  at  epithets 


if  he  thought  they  were  deserved.  The  clearness  and  vigor 
of  his  style,  the  open  sincerity  of  his  opinions,  and  the 
universal  confidence  in  his  integrity,  gave  him  a  hold  on  the 
popular  mind  unparallelled  in  journalism. 

The  Tribune  found  its  way  into  every  nook  and  corner 
of  the  northern  states,  and  followed  the  tide  of  emigration 
to  the  West.  With  the  farmers,  who  regarded  Greeley  as 
one  of  themselves,  it  was  especially  strong.  Every  other 
newspaper  quoted  it,  and  somebody  said  that  no  country 
editor  put  pen  to  paper  until  the  Tribune  had  told  him 
what  Greeley  thought.  It  was  not  only  the  most  widely 
read  but  the  most  universally  talked  about.  Toiling  and 
thinking  multitudes  absorbed  it,  believed  it,  and  voted  by 
it.  Fletcher  of  Saltoun  said  that  he  who  can  make  the 
ballads  of  a  nation  need  not  care  who  makes  its  laws.  The 
real  leader  and  ruler,  in  whose  hands  all  lesser  men  are 
puppets,  is  the  man  who  shapes  the  course  of  public 
thought.  Such  was  Horace  Greeley.  In  the  critical  period 
when  the  forces  of  public  opinion  were  aligning  themselves 
for  the  final  struggle  with  the  slave-power,  a  moral  issue 
was  uppermost,  and  the  appeal  was  to  the  moral  sense. 
Greeley  reached  and  stirred  the  public  conscience.  It  must 
be  reckoned  his  greatest  service  to  the  country  that  he  gave 
the  Tribune  a  place  with  the  Liberator,  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin, 
the  Biglow  Papers,  and  the  stirring  lyrics  of  Whittier.  as 
one  of  the  great  moral  forces  that  settled  the  public  resolve 
against  slavery  and  steeled  the  nation  for  war. 

The  Tribune  made  Greeley  the  best-known   man   in 

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America.  Never  holding  public  office  but  to  serve  out 
three  months  of  an  unexpired  term  in  Congress  at  the  end 
of  1848 — in  which  fragment  of  time  he  broke  up  the  abuses 
of  the  mileage  system  and  brought  in  the  national  policy  of 
the  homestead  laws — he  was  the  most  public  character  in 
the  country.  The  oddities  of  his  appearance  and  manner, 
the  patriarchal  head  and  face,  the  old  hat  and  old  white 
coat,  the  cravat  awry,  the  shapeless  trousers,  the  shambling 
gait,  celebrated  and  exaggerated  in  print  and  caricature, 
made  him  one  of  the  sights  of  New  York,  and  would  have 
been  recognized  at  any  cross-roads  in  the  United  States.  As 
the  Tribune  was  more  talked  about  than  any  other  paper,  so 
Greeley  himself  was  more  talked  about  than  any  other  man. 
His  name  was  familiar  to  every  tongue,  and  his  character  to 
every  man  who  could  read.  Any  bright  schoolboy  could 
have  told  what  "H.  G."  stood  for,  and  any  intelligent 
citizen  could  have  told  what  Horace  Greeley  stood  for. 

It  was  not  the  Tribune  alone  that  did  this.  Greeley's 
activities  were  many  and  amazing.  Politics  and  journalism 
never  monopolized  the  energy  of  this  phenomenal  mind. 
He  was  always  at  work  for  the  social  and  industrial  welfare 
and  progress  of  the  people.  Whittier  called  him  "our 
later  Franklin."  There  is  poetic  license  in  this  comparison, 
but  it  may  be  doubted  whether  there  has  been  since  Frank- 
lin's any  more  widely  useful  life.  With  the  Tribune  on  his 
shoulders,  he  contributed  to  other  newspapers  and  maga- 
zines, delivered  addresses  on  all  sorts  of  occasions,  lectured 
before  country  lyceums  as  the  fashion  then  was,  spoke 

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from  the  stump  in  political  campaigns,  produced  volumes 
of  travel,  social  reform,  agriculture,  political  economy,  and 
one  work  of  permanent  historical  value.  The  American 
Conflict  would  have  made  an  enduring  reputation  for  him 
if  he  had  written  nothing  else.  His  part  in  politics  was  not 
merely  the  part  of  a  writer  and  speaker.  For  many  years 
the  noted  triumvirate  of  Seward,  Weed  and  Greeley  had  a 
direct  and  powerful  hand  upon  the  political  machinery  of 
New  York  and  of  the  nation.  With  unbounded  faith  in  the 
future  of  the  country,  and  eager  for  its  developement,  he  was 
one  of  the  first  to  urge  a  Pacific  railway  when  such  a  pro- 
ject was  laughed  at,  and  Greeley's  persistent  "Go  west, 
young  man"  became  the  rallying  cry  of  a  national  move- 
ment that  peopled  new  states. 

All  his  industry  and  success  never  made  him  rich.  He 
had  no  love  for  money,  and  he  was  never  a  business  man. 
Swindlers  could  overreach  him  and  imposters  get  money 
from  him,  though  the  constant  appeal  to  his  easy  benevo- 
lence was  sometimes  too  much  for  his  temper.  A  solemn- 
looking  character  hung  about  his  desk  one  day  until  the 
hurried  editor  demanded  his  errand.  "  I  want  you  to  give 
me  a  contribution"  said  the  stranger,  "to  save  thousands 
of  our  fellow-creatures  from  going  to  hell."  "I  won't  give 
you  a  blanked  cent,"  was  the  reply.  "  Not  half  enough  of 
them  go  there  now."    Greeley  was  a  Universalist. 

We  are  here  to  remember  Horace  Greeley,  not  to  praise 
him.  His  character  presents  a  strange  combination  of 
strength  and  weakness.    He  was  wise  as  a  sage  and  simple 

12 


as  a  child,  fixed  in  conviction  and  erratic  of  judgment,  full 
of  benevolence  to  every  living  creature,  and  almost  as  full 
of  prejudices,  a  lover  of  man  and  a  hater  of  men.  The 
pugnacity  of  his  honest  nature  struck  out  fiercely  at 
every  rogue,  hypocrite  and  humbug,  and  at  some  just  men 
and  causes.  Where  there  are  blows  to  give  there  are  blows 
to  take.  It  is  no  wonder  that  this  dynamic  man  of  peace 
was  more  abused,  admired,  villified,  hated,  trusted  and  fol- 
lowed, than  any  other  man  of  his  time. 

With  the  approach  of  the  rebellion,  Greeley  became  a 
greater  figure  than  before.  His  place  in  journalism  had 
long  been  first.  He  was  about  to  take  a  larger  place  in  the 
history  of  the  country.  In  his  erratic  course  through  this 
period  there  are  some  episodes  that  cannot  be  recalled  with 
satisfaction.  His  impulsive  temperament  betrayed  him  into 
conduct  which  has  left  shadows  upon  his  reputation,  but 
there  is  no  stain  upon  it.  His  integrity  of  character  and 
purity  of  motive  were  never  questioned. 

In  the  historic  contest  of  1858  between  Douglas  and 
Lincoln,  Greeley's  mistaken  sympathy  with  a  Democrat  in 
revolt  against  a  Democratic  administration,  and  his  views 
of  party  policy,  led  him  to  advocate  the  reelection  of  Doug- 
las. Naturally  and  justly  resented  by  the  Republicans  of 
the  West,  this  was  more  than  atoned  for  two  years  later. 
In  the  Republican  convention  of  1860,  at  Chicago,  Greeley 
cast  all  his  strength  against  Seward,  the  leading  candidate, 
and  cleared  the  way  for  the  nomination  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln.   This  act  was  charged  to  personal  resentment  against 

13 


Seward,  and  not  without  some  reason,  but  Greeley  was 
more  than  justified  by  the  results.  In  the  light  of  subse- 
quent events,  the  man  whose  influence  was  decisive  in 
making  Seward  give  place  to  Lincoln  as  the  leader  of  the 
nation  through  the  throes  of  civil  war  appears  a  chosen 
instrument  in  the  hand  of  Providence. 

In  the  perilous  years  of  President  Lincoln's  adminis- 
tration,the  wisdom  of  his  attitude  in  refusing  to  move  faster 
than  the  people  moved  made  every  leader  of  pliblic  opinion 
an  important  character.  Of  the  leaders  of  public  opinion 
the  man  who  wielded  the  power  of  the  Tribune  was  second 
only  to  Lincoln  himself,  and  his  mistakes  could  not  escape 
notice  and  criticism.  There  was  no  purer  patriot,  no  more 
loyal  friend  of  freedom  and  of  the  Union,  than  Horace 
Greeley,  but  he  was  subject  to  the  limitations  of  his  nature. 
When  the  revolt  of  the  slave  states  was  threatened  Greeley 
scouted  it,  declaring  that  the  South  could  no  more  unite  on 
such  a  scheme  than  a  parcel  of  lunatics  could  conspire  to 
break  out  of  Bedlam.  When  secession  actually  began,  he 
at  first  advised  that  the  rebellious  states  be  allowed  to  go  in 
peace.  So  potent  was  his  influence  that  President  Lincoln 
was  moved  to  interpose  against  the  further  expression  of 
such  views.  There  was  no  more  of  this  after  the  attack  on 
Sumter.  When  rebellion  had  fairly  unmasked  its  front  of 
war,  the  Tribune  raised  the  cry  of  "  On  to  Richmond,"  and 
the  popular  clamor  drove  our  raw  levies  into  the  disaster  of 
Bull  Run.  Despite  his  just  disclaimer  of  personal  respon- 
sibility, the  public  fury  at  the  defeat  was  turned  upon 

14 


Greeley,  always  a  sensitive  man  in  spite  of  his  fighting 
traits,  and  drove  him  into  a  fever  that  threatened  his  life, 
in  which  he  addressed  to  the  president  a  despairing  letter 
that  made  IJncoln,  as  his  biographers  say,  "sigh  at  the 
strange  weakness  of  human  nature." 

Greeley's  impatient  temper  could  not  await  the  cautious 
and  sure-footed  steps  of  the  great  president  toward  the 
freeing  and  arming  of  the  slaves.  The  "  Prayer  of  Twenty 
Millions,"  published  in  the  Tribune,  of  August  19,  1862, 
protesting  against  the  slow  enforcement  of  the  Confiscation 
Acts  upon  the  slaves  of  rebels  in  arms,  drew  from  the  pres- 
ident a  public  reply,  personally  addressed  to  Greeley, 
which  stands  out  as  one  of  the  most  striking  examples  alike 
of  Lincoln's  political  sagacity  and  his  wonderful  power  of 
clear  and  direct  statement.  In  this  letter  is  the  much- 
quoted,  misunderstood  and  perverted  declaration,  "If  I 
could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  any  slave,  I  would  do 
it."  It  is  a  singular  proof  of  human  fatuity  that  people  who 
read  our  history,  and  some  who  write  it,  even  in  the  light  of 
what  followed  still  profess  to  believe  that  Lincoln  would 
have  allowed  slavery  to  be  preserved,  and  quote  this  letter 
for  the  proof.  He  declared  that  his  purpose  was  to  save 
the  Union,  and  every  student  of  Lincoln's  life  knows  that 
there  never  was  a  time  after  1854  when  his  unerring  and 
prophetic  vision  did  not  see  that  the  Union  could  not  be 
saved  with  slavery.  "VMien  he  had  become  president,  with 
the  issues  of  war  in  his  hands,  there  were  occasions  when 
the  duty  of  preserving  a  united  North  compelled  him  to 

15 


temporize,  and  to  be  all  things  to  all  men.  It  is  plain  that 
he  seized  the  occasion  of  Greeley's  protest  to  make  this 
public  declaration  only  because  it  would  help  to  disarm  the 
hostility  of  Northern  conservatives  to  the  policy  of  eman- 
cipation on  which  he  was  already  resolved.  He  could  not 
yet  publicly  declare  that  he  was  resolved  upon  it,  though 
this  can  almost  be  read  between  the  lines,  especially  of  the 
opening  passage  of  his  letter.  But  it  need  only  be  remem- 
bered that  at  the  moment  when  Lincoln  penned  this  letter 
to  Greeley,  on  the  22nd  day  of  August,  1862,  there  lay  upon 
his  table,  ready-winged  for  its  flight,  the  proclamation  of 
freedom,  which  had  already  been  announced  to  the  cabinet 
council  and  a  month  later  was  given  to  the  world. 

In  1864,  when  final  victory  was  in  sight,  Greeley  seemed 
appalled  at  the  continued  outpouring  of  blood  and  treasure, 
called  for  a  cessation  of  hostilities,  and  urged  the  president 
to  negotiate  for  peace  with  rebel  agents  then  in  Canada. 
The  tactful  president  met  this  demand  by  promptly  de- 
puting Greeley  himself  upon  the  mission,  which  came  to 
nothing.  He  did  not  favor  the  renomination  of  Lincoln, 
and  predicted  his  defeat  if  nominated,  though  supporting 
him  vigorously  in  the  campaign.  The  patient  president 
believed  and  declared  Greeley  incapable  of  wilful  miscon- 
duct, and  Greeley  afterward  atoned,  so  far  as  he  could,  for 
his  attitude  toward  Lincoln  in  his  lifetime,  acknowledging 
him  to  be  "  the  one  Providential  leader,  the  indispensable 
hero  of  the  great  drama." 

Upon  the  collapse  of  the  rebellion,  Greeley's  benevolent 

16 


impulses  led  him  to  take  ground  at  once  for  universal  am- 
nesty and  universal  suffrage.  The  freedman  should  vote, 
and  the  rebel  should  be  forgiven.  In  line  with  this  con- 
viction he  made,  on  invitation,  a  journey  to  Richmond,  in 
1867,  to  become  bail  for  the  release  of  Jefferson  Davis 
from  further  military  custody.  This  generous  if  misguided 
act  raised  a  storm  of  denunciation.  The  Tribune  was  as- 
sailed with  a  chorus  of  "Stop  my  paper,"  the  sale  of  the 
American  Conflict  came  to  a  standstill,  and  even  Greeley's 
personal  and  social  standing  was  threatened.  A  leading 
club  called  him  to  account  with  a  view  to  expulsion;  to 
which  he  rejoined  with  characteristic  vigor,  "  You  evidently 
regard  me  as  a  weak  sentimentalist,  misled  by  a  maudlin 
philosophy.  I  arraign  you  as  narrow-minded  blockheads, 
who  would  like  to  be  useful  to  a  great  and  good  cause  but 
don't  know  how."  The  club  did  not  pursue  the  subject. 
When  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  had  been  ratified,  Greeley 
declared  "the  books  closed,"  that  all  the  crimes  of  rebellion 
should  be  overlooked  and  all  remembrance  of  them  merged 
in  complete  reconciliation.  He  failed  in  judgment  here,  as 
he  had  at  other  critical  periods.  Even  the  contemptuous  re- 
jection of  the  constitutional  amendments  by  the  rebel  states 
had  not  taught  him  that  the  snake  was  only  scotched,  not 
killed.  The  South  was  still  determined,  as  it  is  to-day,  to 
preserve  the  substance  if  not  the  form  of  slavery,  and  after 
almost  half  a  century  we  find  it  still  in  open  rebellion  against 
the  Federal  constitution,  by  fraud  instead  of  force,  with 
Greeley's  hope  of  universal  or  even  impartial  suffrage  yet 
unrealized.  ^"^ 


We  cx)ine  to  the  climax,  and  the  catastrophe.  In  May, 
1872,  the  Liberal  Republican  convention,  at  Cincinnati, 
nominated  Greeley  for  the  presidency.  This  futile  but  not 
unpatriotic  movement  was  a  Republican  revolt  against 
President  Grant,  led  by  eminent  and  high-minded  men 
whose  confidence  was  shaken,  perhaps  too  soon,  by  the 
mistakes  of  his  first  administration  and  the  sinister  influ- 
ence of  worthless  camp-followers  about  him.  The  Cin- 
cinnati platform,  unexceptionable  in  tone  and  character, 
followed  Greeley  in  declaring  for  universal  amnesty  and 
impartial  suffrage,  and  Greeley's  letter  of  acceptance  ex- 
pressed his  belief  that  the  people.  North  and  South,  were 
ready  to  "  clasp  hands  across  the  bloody  chasm" — a  phrase 
that  passed  into  a  popular  shibboleth.  Forthwith  upon 
this  nomination  all  the  vials  of  partisan  wrath  were 
opened  and  poured  out  upon  him.  He  had  asserted  his 
independence  of  party,  the  mortal  sin  of  politicians.  All 
that  he  had  done  for  the  party,  and  for  the  country,  was 
forgotten  in  a  moment.  Calumny  outran  itself,  and  Gree- 
ley was  lampooned,  abused  and  reviled  with  a  brutal  fer- 
ocity unknown  even  to  the  prize-ring  of  politics.  The 
Democratic  convention,  meeting  at  Baltimore  in  July, 
adopted  the  Cincinnati  candidates  and  platform,  and 
Greeley  accepted  the  nomination.  This  sealed  his  fate, 
though  it  was  not  otherwise  doubtful.  Myriads  of  Repub- 
licans in  sympathy  with  the  movement  refused  to  see  that 
Greeley,  who  did  not  alter  his  position  by  the  breadth  of  a 
hair,  had  not  gone  to  the  Democratic  party  but  that  the 

18 


party  had  come  to  him.  They  would  not  support  a  candi- 
date bearing  the  Democratic  label.  He  made  a  campaign 
tour  of  New  England  and  the  middle  West,  rising  to  his 
highest  level  in  a  series  of  dignified,  temperate  and  states- 
man-like speeches,  and  achieved  a  popular  vote  of  nearly 
three  millions  in  a  total  of  less  than  six  millions  and  a  half, 
but  every  northern  state  was  against  him.  The  distrust  of 
Greeley's  new  alliance  was  not  unnatural  or  unfounded, 
and  Greeley  himself,  with  all  his  virtues,  did  not  strike  the 
popular  instinct  as  a  safe  candidate  for  the  presidency. 
Apart  from  this,  the  military  prestige  of  President  Grant 
would  have  carried  all  before  it.  The  people  remembered 
the  victorious  general,  and  they  forgot  everything  else. 
Greeley's  defeat  was  foreordained  at  Appomattox. 

He  was  recalled  from  the  strife  of  the  campaign  to  the 
bedside  of  his  dying  wife,  who  was  taken  from  him  on  the 
eve  of  the  election.  Widowed  and  defeated,  his  fortitude 
was  still  unshaken,  and  no  sooner  was  the  result  of  the 
political  contest  declared  than  he  promptly  resumed  the 
editorial  chair  of  the  Tribune.  But  the  calamities  that 
could  not  subdue  this  resolute  spirit  were  too  much  for  the 
physical  frame.  The  overworked  brain  gave  way,  and  on 
the  twenty-ninth  day  of  that  same  month  of  November, 
with  little  warning,  the  country  was  startled  by  the  news 
that  Horace  Greeley  was  no  more. 

At  the  dramatic  culmination  of  this  illustrious  and  useful 
life,  and  the  pathos  of  the  closing  scene,  there  was  a  recoil 
from  the  extreme  of  abuse  to  the  extreme  of  eulogy.    All 

19 


classes  and  conditions  of  men  joined  in  the  universal  ex- 
pression of  public  loss,  to  which  probably  every  press  and 
almost  every  pulpit  in  the  United  States  made  its  contri- 
bution. The  city  of  New  York  turned  aside  for  the  funeral 
observance.  Crowds  surged  through  City  Hall  to  view  the 
dead  face  of  the  friend  of  the  people  until  the  doors  had  to 
be  closed  against  them.  The  highest  officials  of  the  nation 
and  of  many  states  followed  him  to  the  grave,  through  silent 
and  uncovered  throngs,  never  seen  before  nor  since  save  at 
the  obsequies  of  Lincoln  and  Grant.  It  was  not  the  empty 
honor  often  paid  to  official  station,  for  he  held  none,  nor  to 
success,  for  he  died  under  the  shadow  of  defeat.  It  was  a 
sincere  and  unaffected  tribute  to  the  patriot,  the  friend  of 
humanity,  the  tribune  of  the  people. 

It  has  been  unworthily  said  that  he  died  of  wounded 
vanity  at  the  judgment  passed  against  him  in  the  election. 
Such  empty  detraction  can  neither  be  proved  nor  disproved, 
but  it  is  not  likely  that  the  ordinary  abuse  of  a  presidential 
contest,  even  followed  by  defeat,  would  have  put  an  end  to 
his  life  or  seriously  disturbed  him.  In  the  warfare  of  pol- 
itics, Horace  Greeley  was  an  old  soldier.  No  man  knew 
better  than  he  that  the  loudest  clamor  of  a  presidential 
campaign  is  nothing  but  the  squealing  and  scrambling  of 
a  herd  of  mercenaries  to  get  their  noses  into  the  public 
trough  or  keep  them  in  it.    As  Hosea  Biglow  said  or  sang : 

"  They  march  in  percessions,  an'  git  up  booraws, 
An'  tramp  thru  the  raud  for  the  good  o'  the  cause, 
An'  think  they're  a  kind  o'  fulfiUin"  the  prophecies 
Wen  they're  only  jest  changin'  the  holders  of  offices." 
■20 


Greeley  was  not  to  be  frightened  or  hurt  by  the  thunder  of 
the  captains  and  the  shouting,  and  he  well  knew  the  fortune 
of  war.  Even  in  defeat,  it  was  not  wholly  adverse  to  him. 
He  received  a  great  popular  endorsement  in  the  vote  at  the 
polls.  But  he  was  cut  to  the  heart  by  the  malice  of  enemies 
and  treachery  of  friends.  He  was  tortured  with  fear  of 
disaster  to  the  Tribune,  the  child  of  his  aflFection,  He  had 
taxed  his  physical  powers  beyond  endurance,  and  domestic 
calamity  fell  heavily  upon  him  at  the  moment  when  out- 
raged nature  was  strained  to  the  breaking  point.  Surely 
there  is  enough  here  to  account  for  his  taking-off. 

A  prophet  is  not  without  honor  save  in  his  own  country 
and  in  his  own  house.  Happily  it  is  not  left  to  his  native 
town  or  state  to  remember  Horace  Greeley.  Many  bio- 
graphers have  told  and  still  tell  his  story,  the  working 
printers  placed  above  his  grave  in  Greenwood  cemetery  a 
memorial  bust,  cast  in  type-metal,  his  statue  was  raised  on 
the  spot  dedicated  by  the  city  of  New  York  as  Greeley 
Square,  and  towns  and  counties  in  the  far  West  bear  and 
perpetuate  his  name;  while  New  Hampshire  talks  of  a 
statue  to  the  president  who  fed  from  the  hand  of  slavery 
and  went  to  the  verge  of  treason  in  holding  out  hope  to  a 
slaveholders'  rebellion — leaving  to  distant  states  the  pious 
duty  of  commemorating  her  son  who  lost  the  presidency 
but  kept  his  honor  and  kept  faith  with  freedom. 

The  loss  of  the  presidency  was  no  misfortune  to  Greeley. 
It  would  have  added  little,  perhaps  nothing,  to  his  per- 
manent reputation.    Fortunate  that  he  escaped  the  fate  of 

31 


some  in  that  illustrious  line  for  whom  oblivion  would  be  a 
happy  exchange.  A  man  of  genius,  with  the  faults  that 
usually  attend  upon  genius,  he  was  not  of  the  stuff  of  which 
presidents  are  made.  High  character  and  purity  of  pur- 
pose he  had,  but  not  the  cool  and  balanced  judgment,  the 
"sure-footed  mind"  and  "supple-tempered  will"  that 
ought  to  be  found  in  the  head  of  the  nation.  In  temper- 
ament he  was  less  a  statesman  than  moralist  and  reformer, 
thouffh  what  overflowed  from  Greelev  into  the  field  of 
statecraft  would  make  the  reputation  of  many  statesmen. 
He  had  a  human  interest  in  which  many  greater  men  are 
wanting.  It  is  enough  for  his  fame  that  he  had  a  foremost 
part  in  forging  the  weapons  that  struck  down  rebellion  and 
saved  the  Union  that  slavery-  would  have  destroyed.  A 
great  citizen,  whose  example  was  the  shame  of  every  hypo- 
crite and  coward,  who  never  stifled  his  honest  thought  nor 
bent  his  knee  to  power,  whose  character  and  voice  of 
authority  made  legislatures  listen  and  statesmen  sit  at  his 
feet,  he  will  be  remembered  when  presidents  are  forgotten. 
Horace  Greeley  was  first  and  last  a  great  journalist, 
holding  that  this  character  may  be  made  superior  to  any 
official  station,  and  doing  much  to  vindicate  the  claim. 
His  influence  permanently  raised  the  level  of  the  American 
newspaper  and  the  thought  of  the  American  people.  The 
real  power  of  the  press  in  this  country  began  with  Greeley, 
and  if  it  did  not  end  with  him,  it  has  gained  nothing  since. 
The  Tribune  had  no  higher  merit  than  its  absolute  inde- 
pendence, alike  of  the  slave  power,  which  ruled  the  country 

22 


then,  and  the  money  power,  which  I'ules  the  country  now. 
We  know  in  what  contempt  the  great  editor  would  have 
held  the  modern  advertising-machine,  boasting  its  circu- 
lation but  without  character  or  courage  to  print  anything 
that  might  disturb  the  balance  of  a  ledger.  Better,  would 
he  say,  better  the  honest  opinion  even  of  a  bad  man  than 
the  dumb  oracle  that  sits  with  hand  on  mouth  and  points 
to  a  bargain-counter. 

It  was  in  the  character  of  journalist  that  Horace  Greeley 
wished  to  be  remembered.  Not  long  before  his  death  he 
left  this  testimony  to  the  world,  in  solemn  and  pathetic 
words  that  sound  of  prophecy  and  requiem.  "Fame,"  he 
said,  "is  a  vapor;  popularity  an  accident;  riches  take 
wings;  the  only  earthly  certainty  is  oblivion;  no  man  can 
foresee  what  a  day  may  bring  forth;  while  those  who  cheer 
today  will  often  curse  tomorrow;  and  yet  I  cherish  the  hope 
that  the  journal  I  projected  and  established  will  live  and 
jflourish  long  after  I  shall  have  mouldered  into  forgotten 
dust,  being  guided  by  a  larger  wisdom,  a  more  unerring 
sagacity  to  discern  the  right,  though  not  a  more  unfaltering 
readiness  to  embrace  and  defend  it  at  whatever  cost;  and 
that  the  stone  which  covers  my  ashes  may  bear  to  future 
eyes  the  still  intelligible  inscription,  'Founder  of  the  New 
York  Tribune'." 


The  Stetson  Press,  Boston 


L 


rr«-,i-ir_    — 


,0^ 


